I'm a home brewer out here in New Zealand and we've got an Amateur Brewers West Coast IPA Challenge coming up. So I've decided to enter...the winner gets their beer brewed professionally and sold in a local bar and the then entered in a pro brewers comp in June.

I'd be keen for anyone to give me their thoughts on my recipe. I've gone with my gut on this one, and of course some help from Ray Daniels (he's looked after me on previous brews).

I've already got the starter on the stir-plate and am on my 4th generation of this yeast...so far it's treated me very well producing 2 bitters and a brown ale.

I'll be brewing this recipe in a couple of days in order to have it ready for the comp (and a boys night at my place a couple of days before...). Any help/insight on my recipe would be greatly appreciated. Really keen to hear back about the hop schedule...should I include a 30min addition as well?

Look forward to hearing from you all. This is my 1st WCIPA recipe, after a couple of pretty solid single hop IPA attempts in the past.

Agree with the above comments, if Simcoe is scarce don't waste it early in the boil. You can bitter with anything pretty much, something neutral like Magnum or more Centennial if you have it. Amarillo and simcoe are a nice combo late, I find Amarillo by itself gets too fruity/orangey for my tastes.

I'll go out on a limb and say your grain bill seems a little complex for a west coast ipa. Some base malt, maybe 3 or 4% crystal, and <5% of 1 other specialty malt will showcase your hops more. And I think even that is pushing it. You may also want to throw some corn sugar in there to dry it out some as well - 1.015 FG seems a bit high to me. Also, I'd double or triple the flameout hops, simcoe and amarillo sounds good, and I'd let them sit there (hopstand) for 30 minutes before chilling. I'd go with 3oz of dry hops at least, with some simcoe and amarillo in there as well.

Thanks for all the feedback guys. I'm potentially over thinking this, but I've had a reshuffle of my hops. Moved the Centennial to the start of the boil to get a little more out of it, shifted the simcoe to later and introduced a little cascade into the boil, rather than having it all in the dry hop. Check it out.

I'll go out on a limb and say your grain bill seems a little complex for a west coast ipa. Some base malt, maybe 3 or 4% crystal, and <5% of 1 other specialty malt will showcase your hops more. And I think even that is pushing it. You may also want to throw some corn sugar in there to dry it out some as well - 1.015 FG seems a bit high to me. Also, I'd double or triple the flameout hops, simcoe and amarillo sounds good, and I'd let them sit there (hopstand) for 30 minutes before chilling. I'd go with 3oz of dry hops at least, with some simcoe and amarillo in there as well.

Just my $0.02.

It could be, but I quite like that. The IPA's I've brewed in the past have often had a similar grist and they've come out really nice.

1.015 is a little high, but I'm not convinced it will stop there...I'm on my 4th generation of this yeast and have used a 2L starter to give me plenty of yeast to get this thing done. So far the 3 beers I've already brewed with this yeast have all finished out lower than the predicted FG. It's within style guidelines to, even if it isn't quite "West Coast"

I like the new hop schedule much better. I also brew a lot of west coast IPA's with a similar grain bill, something like 10-15% of munich and/or vienna combined, plus a little wheat. I'll typically not include any crystal at all though.